George Lucas's seemingly never-ending saga may have left the cinemas (forthcoming 3D adaptations aside), but there are still plenty of complex back stories to fill in the gaps. While some may consider this as welcome as Brian Glazer at Old Trafford, demand clearly exists with, for example, The Force Unleashed shipping some 7m copies worldwide.

Those sorts of figures make a sequel inevitable, whatever the critics may have said about the first game. Happily, some of those negative comments have been taken on board for this epic sequel which, while still limited in some ways – no online play, sadly – retains the good bits of the original while tinkering, mostly successfully, with the formula.

Spoiler alert: The Force Unleashed finished with your character, the Sith apprentice Starkiller, turning on mentor Darth Vader and, apparently, sacrificing himself to start the rebellion. The Force Unleashed II starts, thanks to Vader's cloning programme, with a new Starkiller, who's been created to murder rebel leader General Kota. Things don't go to plan, however, as Starkiller 2.0 is having flashbacks to his former/original existence and, instead of assassinating his former ally, he sets off to rescue him – and to find Juno Eclipse, the object of Starkiller 1.0's affections.

Confused? You ain't seen nothing yet, as many lengthy cut scenes will testify. While these will no doubt keep the fans happy, they could arguably distract from the gaming action. Or, indeed, provide welcome respite from the frequently frantic battles.

It's here that the tweaks are most noticeable, with the camerawork more controlled and the targeting more focused than before. While the lightsaber action is, perhaps inevitably, pretty standard – Hit X. Hit X again. Hit X several more times – that's not what sells 7m copies, anyway. Happily, what does – the Force powers – are even better than before with Push, Grip and Lightning all more powerful, more controllable and more combinable: you can pick up a bit of scenery, charge it with Force Lightning and turn it into an impromptu and powerful grenade.

The best addition, however, is Mind Trick, a proper bit of Jedi power where you can convince Stormtroopers etc to end it all themselves (and there are a LOT of ledges for them to jump off), fight for you or declare "there's a spy in our midst" and start shooting their colleagues.

While the last game impressed with the variety of enemies, TFUII takes a "less is more" approach, reducing the variety but upping the intelligence. The result is a frequently challenging (if disappointingly linear) journey to some truly epic boss battles.

Scenery is, of course, massive and massively impressive, and the possible repetitive nature has been broken up with some freefalling levels and the odd exploratory moment. Whether this will be enough to keep the game fresh over its lengthy running time is debatable, but LucasArts' claims that The Force Unleashed II as their Empire Strikes Back doesn't seem too wide of the mark.